Apaches own CloudStack 4.0 unveiled in incubating release

Just as ApacheCon gets underway, the Apache CloudStack team think the time is right to let the community have a peek at some code

The seven months since Citrix pushed their cloud
infrastructure orchestratorCloudStackacross to the Apache Software Foundation has flown by, yet we
were getting a bit restless.

With OpenStack picking up all the attention, we just wondered
whether the team behind the Apache effort would be unable to make
as big a splash with a properly open source CloudStack. Especially
with the tentative release date fromSeptemberpushed back too.

Thankfully, some code with the Apache name embossed on it has
finally arrived, coincidentally in the week of ApacheCon. The
Apache CloudStack 4.0.0 ‘incubating release’ has really boosted
third-party support. Extensive AWS support comes in the shape of
CloudBridge being included in the release (unlike previous releases
where it was a separate component).

This allows users to turn on the EC2 API should they wish,
which could prove to be a clincher for customers wanting Amazon
APIs present in their infrastructure. It’s also a fairly
contentious area too, and the team have decided to disable it as
default to avoid irking others. You can’t really argue against
Amazon holding the key in this open infrastructure battle. Some
avoid it entirely and strike it out alone (OpenStack), other
embrace Amazon APIs (Eucalyptus). CloudStack appears to be
somewhere in between and that could be a big plus
point.

There’s plenty of hooks to other technologies included too
such as Nicira, CAStor and CLVM. For further information on what’s
new, check out therelease notes. Details over future releases
continue to be discussed on thedeveloper mailing list, with the committers
looking for a four month cycle.

Now that CloudStack is emerged with a incubating release, it
will be intriguing to see where it goes from here, and more
importantly where it fits in. Could Citrix’s decision to leave
OpenStack and push their own project to Apache reap the ultimate
dividends in the end?